Doing the Sales Demo Addendum: 3 Corollaries to Consider.

Tony and Haichen working on some of the print materials to support our sales efforts.

Just to refresh your memory, in the previous post on doing a sales demo, the five guidelines were:

1. KNOW your demo.
2. They've NEVER seen it before (meaning your product)
3. It's a STORY
4. Focus on BIG CONCEPTS
5. Fill in the DEAD air

Haichen, Chloe and Augus reviewing Jibao Service.

After working with sales team over the last couple of weeks, I'm reminded of 3 other corollaries:

A. Don't be TOO smart; aka "Keep it Simple."
Do not feel compelled to explain all 247 features and functions. Lots of salespeople doing a demo, want to "show off" their knowledge. This is essentially self indulgent. Your audience doesn't need to know how smart you are, they need to GET your product. Keep it simple. This is similar to the "Focus on the Big Concepts."

Watch out. If you're a high achieving person, especially one who's gone to a very good university, this will be a bad tendency of yours. Stop "showing off." It's not about you. It's about your audience.

Often times, when you're unsure about your product, or get defensive about the product, you may keep rattling on and on. Stop. Don't explain anymore. Let your audience ask you a questions, don't anticipate what they're going to ask and as a result, keep droning on with answers. And when they ask a question, keep the answer brief. Don't over elaborate.

The other cause of over explaining occurs when you don't have a good written script, and you wing it. Examples of over explaining would be, "here's the icon for the trash can. I don't need to explain what the trash can is for, since you probably know what it is. So, I won't explain what this trash can does. . . " If you don't need to explain it, don't bother saying you don't need to explain. Simply, say, "This is the trash can" and move on!

Nothing says, "I don't know my own product," like a lengthy, unsuccinct answer. You end up coming off unprofessional and unknowledgeable, exactly the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish.

C. Act as if it's a given.
Don't feel like you need to justify things in the product. Use phrases like, "we're like all software services" or "as with most services, we also do the following," this is what we offer as well, or will require you to do as well.